As the kids say, we are hip to all the latest dank memes…

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[6.30]

Alfred Soto: Eight years after “Lip Gloss,” she’s still shouting goofy shit. I counted a few shout outs and was singing the fantastic hook after one play.
[7]

Nina Lea Oishi: It makes sense that a song inspired by a meme would be jam-packed full of references itself, including but not limited to: Rockin’ Robin, “Trap Queen,” “Milkshake,” the Milly Rock, and Dionne Warwick (and by extension, Slick Rick).  This track is 100% references to other songs, but Lil Mama has the style to make it more than that.
[7]

Madeleine Lee: Putting a leash on a meme (or eleven) so it will lead you to its fortune is one thing, but why turn poor Dionne Warwick into this?
[4]

Will Adams: As if aware of its own ephemerality (such is the way of memes), “Sausage” peters out into nothing after the second chorus. The chorus, in fact, is really the only thing to digest here; I can’t really recall much else from the song exceSAW-SAW-SAW-SAW-SAW-SAW-SAW-SAW-SAW-SAUSAGE EGGS BACON GRIIIIIIITS
[5]

Ramzi Awn: Sausage is a dish best served hot, but this is one cold mess.
[3]

Josh Winters: All meat, no filler.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Who’s archiving Vine? Lil Mama may be our best shot at getting eggs/bacon/sausage in the vault. She’s the urge to entertain personified, Jimmy and Justin with a better claim to this shit. Too bad she skimped on the beat, but you barely notice.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: A much more authentic and “yo I gotta stop by the bodega real quick b, but put on Hot 97” version of Jimmy Fallon’s tiresomely myopic History of Rap routines. And it’s cute but… I mean, that’s not a song.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Vine makes me feel decrepit and confused, you know my stance on meme songs, and the only thing I hate more than meme songs is the phenomenon of grown-ass wealthy adults at major labels circling the kids with the biggest numbers, which is not the same thing as friends, to give them monetization, which is not the same thing as money, while slightly less wealthy grown-ass adults in the media write endless fawning words attaching Importance and Significance and Subversion to kids just fucking around. Also, this song rules. And it rules because “Lip Gloss” was ultimately just Lil Mama letting loose over “Roxanne’s Revenge,” and this is much the same.
[7]

Mo Kim: One of my favorite things to do freshman year of college was check in my two neighbors across the hall. Usually, there’d be a small city’s worth of friends ostensibly cramming for a Life Sciences exam, but upon further examination they’d usually be surfing Tumblr together, laughing at the latest six-second feature film to cross their periphery. I know we’re a generation raised on the Internet, and I’ve read too many thinkpieces bemoaning those moronic millennials and their memes, but what so many commentators often miss out on is how online gags like this year’s Sausage rap can foster spontaneous connection and community. If there’s anybody in rap qualified to deliver this message, it’s Lil Mama, who wrote her first single about lip gloss and dedicated her first album to giving voice to young people. Here, she takes the scraps of twenty hip-hop hits from the last two decades and grinds out a swaggerific ode to safe sex, her sister getting accepted to Yale, and dancing at the parties you weren’t invited to. It’s an argument for community held through a block party, so inviting and joyful that it speaks for itself.
[9]